Official Competition

Official Competition (Competencia oficial, 2021) is a sharp Argentine-Spanish satire you can watch online on iFILM. An aging billionaire wants to be remembered, so he buys himself a "great film." Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat direct.

The job lands with Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz), a frizzy-haired auteur whose rehearsal methods border on cruelty. She's handed two leads who can't stand each other. Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) is a Hollywood heartthrob coasting on charm and easy money. Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez) is a self-serious stage actor who sneers at anything commercial. Nine days of rehearsal turn into a contest of egos: Lola dangles a massive boulder over their heads, makes them kiss their own awards and then grind the trophies to dust, watching to see who cracks first.

Almost all of it plays out in a cold concrete arts center where vanity has nowhere to hide. Cruz and Banderas, two of Spain's biggest stars, clearly relish sending up versions of themselves. A clever movie about moviemaking, built for anyone who enjoys the industry skewering its own. Stream Official Competition (2021) online on iFILM.